The world's busiest port, the modern nation of the Republic of Singapore, was founded as a British trading post on the Strait of Malacca in 1819. Singapore's location on the major sea route between India and China, its excellent harbor, and the free trade status conferred on it by its visionary founder, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, made the port an overnight success. By 1990 the multiethnic population attracted to the island had grown from a few thousand to 2.6 million Singaporeans, frequently referred to by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew as his nation's greatest resource. If Raffles had set the tone for the island's early success, Lee had safeguarded the founder's vision through the first quarter-century of Singapore's existence as an independent nation, providing the leadership that turned it into a global city that offered trading and financial services to the region and to the world.

Singapore has reinvented itself as one of Southeast Asia's most modern and dynamic cities. Melding together a mass of differentcultures, cuisines and architectural styles, the city-state is now studded with vast newshowpiece constructions to complement its colonial-era hotels and civic buildings.Cutting-edge tourist developments continue to spring up. Shopping avenues andunderground malls throb with life, as do the food courts, the riverside bars and the temple-dotted outlying neighbourhoods.